Huhtikuu - Huhta...this is hard to explain. This is the month where you went and cut down the trees, the huhta, that grew in the area you planned to cultivate. You left them there to dry until summer and then burned them which would then fertilize the field.

The pedunculate and sessile oaks are the only Northern European deciduous tree not to shed their leaves, so I am told. They die, but remain on the tree. I have heard it argued that "tammikuu" derives from the fact that the oaks - not that there's many of them about, save down sarf - were the only trees to have "leaves" at this time of year. This is of course only one theory among many. There at least three meanings for "tammi" besides the tree, though the game is unlikely to have been accorded a month.

"Passion is inversely proportional to the amount of real information available" (Benford's Law of Controversy)

Originally meaning in-between month, as tammikuu splits the winter in half. Tammi-and helmikuu were called isotammi and pikkutammi (big oak & small oak). In the old calendars the height of winter was 13 or 14.1, hence the name 'heart month'.

Helmikuu Peral Month
The snow and icepicks glisten as pearls. In same areas this phenomenon was called 'grouse eyes'. In old lunar calendars the 13th, 'foam month' could also be here.

Maaliskuu Earth month
In maaliskuu the snow starts to melt so that bare ground starts to show.

WLM wrote:The pedunculate and sessile oaks are the only Northern European deciduous tree not to shed their leaves, so I am told. They die, but remain on the tree. I have heard it argued that "tammikuu" derives from the fact that the oaks - not that there's many of them about, save down sarf - were the only trees to have "leaves" at this time of year. This is of course only one theory among many. There at least three meanings for "tammi" besides the tree, though the game is unlikely to have been accorded a month.

The calander changed a bit. Was it before 1520 when January was in the present November.
Climate also changes. Around the year 1000 it was warmer in the Baltics and there may have been vast oak forests in Finland. Where does the name Tammisaari come from?
What do they sow in the second verse of the Kalevala? Isn't it oak?

There are several oak forests in Lohja. One is exactly at the crossing of the highway to Turku and the Hanko-Hyvinkää road.

Elokuu Harvest month Old names also 9include kylökuu, old name for winter-barley being sown and mätäkuu - rotten month as wounds won't heal and fish and meat spoil easy.

Mätäkuu is of course a term still in common use. The nearest translation would be "the silly season", that time of year (basically July to early August) when nothing of any significance is happening on the political or economic front, so an overweight ex-boxer can be sure of securing tabloid headlines on a daily basis while comatose in a Helsinki hospital, or stories of a runaway lion in Ruokolahti can be sure to grip the nation.

That bison that escaped last week was seasonally-challenged.

I just noticed that this is my 1000th post, and considering the context, it was probably a very suitable one.

"Passion is inversely proportional to the amount of real information available" (Benford's Law of Controversy)

So tell me more about mätäkuu and why it's kinda looked upon as an 'unsanitary' month. I once heard that some doctors even discourage surgery during this month since supposedly 'wounds don't heal' then!

I had never heard of this 'pus month' ( ) before coming to Finland from nearly seasonless N. California. Is August that sort of month elsewhere in the world as well?